Glide Wrapper for Independence War 1

[Stephen Robertson]

I think that may be it then. The only way to check for sure would be to remove a stick of memory and then see if it works. I might try that, but I'm a bit wary of mucking around with my PC - I've just rebuilt it and got it all working again!

[GrandpaTrout]

If the problem is in the wrapper, the glide development fellow could fix it. If the problem is in Iwar - then we are stuck. (Darn shame that a working wrapper would appear just at the moment the standard gaming rig passes the 512meg mark. Curse you Ironic world!)

Who had the name of the glide developer? Pehaps he has an idea on where the issue might be. Perhaps we can fake the lower memory size?

[arrrse]

But I have a gig & I had it working

[sauron1]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
Who had the name of the glide developer? Pehaps he has an idea on where the issue might be.

Grandpa- it's in the link I posted at the top of the thread. He's a really nice guy - it would definitely be worth emailing him.

Hope this helps.

[GrandpaTrout]

uh, yeah, I, uh, saw that *blush, blush*

Ok, I have sent him an email. Hopefully, it is something he can fix (crosses fingers).

[GrandpaTrout]

His very quick response:

That's an interesting theory, but doesn't fit exactly, I'm afraid.
I'm not sure how you'd arrive at 512 megs with just 16 bits. If you count
memory pages (which are usually 4k=2^12), you get to 2^(16+12), and
that's just 256 megs :\

Anyway, the wrapper uses 32 bit pointers for all memory allocation.
Using 16 bit wouldn't make much sense, because then, every time
I need a true memory address, I'd have to look it up somewhere. Direct
pointers are much easier to use, and that's what I do.

Physical memory is btw not likely to matter here, because applications
can't really distinguish between virtual (on-disk) and physical memory,
except for when it comes to performance, of course.

... which might just be another thing to try: if you have played around
with your virtual memory settings - many people set it to a large, fixed
size, heck, I do that too - try reverting it back to defaults ("let Windows
manage virtual memory" or something like that). The idea is, that
Windows may run out of physical address space (not memory), and it
needs some of that to set up communications with the graphics hardware.
Ie there is no free address space to work with, because it's all statically
bound to some part of the swap file on disk, even though none of it is
allocated.

Please try that.

Another thing, I've recently fixed one thing that could cause a crash
in the wrapper. When an applications calls some specific funtions before
the render window is initialized, it could bypass a sanity check and Windows
would nuke the process with a memory exception. That would have been an
invalid read at address 0x0000000C. I've fixed that in the meantime but I'm
not yet ready to release. I'm interested in *exact* error messages you guys
are getting when I-War crashes, to see if that was it.

Please copy this to the thread on the Atari forums. I can't register there
(they don't accept my email provider for some reason), and it's the best
way for me to reach more I-War users.

We'll hopefully get this worked out. Thanks,
-Rolf Neuberger/zeckensack

[arrrse]

I have it working again now

It was either the patch for outlook express I downloaded off windows update, or it was fiddling with my virtual memory settings after reading what steve said.

I think the latter since that was what I was doing previously when I got the thing to work & the error is talking about memory.

What I did today is disable the system managed virtual memory on d: & put a 500mb virtual memory on c:
What I had done the previous time was that hinted by the 'memory' error, I discovered that I actually had been running windows for some time with NO virtual memory so I set myself a 500mb on c: and a system managed on d: (the bigger drive).

[GrandpaTrout]

I reduced my virtual memory to below 500meg, and it started working.

I still get a crash when I exit.

[MichaelShane]

When I run the game (I-War/Defiance) everything seems fine except for the main viewport. There's nothing but a blank screen. The sounds and movies play fine... but no stars or ships. This shot was taken on the first mission; the salvage mission.



I limited the texture memory to 4 Mb as Stephen instructed, but changed nothing else.

Has anyone encountered this using the Glide Wrapper? Any suggestions on a fix?


Win XP (home)
1.1 GHz processor
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
512 Mb RAM
Sidewinder2 ForceFeedback stick

[GrandpaTrout]

Try hitting "F2" to go to the nav console. I get that black out after about 10 seconds on the command console. But the nav has never blacked.

[Stephen Robertson]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
I reduced my virtual memory to below 500meg, and it started working.

I still get a crash when I exit.

Interesting. I'll give that a try, thanks!

[sauron1]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
His very quick response:

...Another thing, I've recently fixed one thing that could cause a crash
in the wrapper. When an applications calls some specific funtions before
the render window is initialized, it could bypass a sanity check and Windows
would nuke the process with a memory exception. That would have been an invalid read at address 0x0000000C. I've fixed that in the meantime but I'm not yet ready to release.

-Rolf Neuberger/zeckensack

That's the error message I get when the game crashes to desktop at the end of a mission, I'm sure of it. Maybe it's been fixed now? That would be great!

[Johan]

My old PIII 500Mhz 128MB RAM with a Voodoo 3 3000 was recently upgraded from windows 98 to windows XP.

On Windows 98, I-War: Special Edition worked perfectly, with no faults what so ever. However, when I try to run 3dfx 800x600 mode mode on XP it starts, then immediately crashes to desktop, giving me an error saying:

A problem has been detected during BRender initialisation

Please refer to the readme file for help on this problem

Obviously the readme file says nothing. Besides, the game worked perfectly on '98. What is wrong? How can I fix my problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I-war is one of the best games ever made (i've completed both)

[Stephen Robertson]

I reduced my page file size to 512mb and it works!

I am so happy!

[arrrse]

Totally rocks
Somebody should tell zackensack.

Are there any new features in the voodoo2 mode Steve? Or is it just the 800*600? (so far I'm prefering voodoo1 with 'hires' mode)

You can set the memory settings to 16mb & it still works MichaelShane.
I can't say I've noticed any blank screens...

[Stephen Robertson]

Voodoo2 mode is simply 800x600. The advantage is that everything looks a bit smoother, and the HUD isn't quite so 'chunky'.

The disadvantage is the control panels look blurrier.

[arrrse]

ahh 800*600 cockpit graphics

[Jadman]

I was wondering if someone could help me with this, i can't seem to get the glidewrapper working. When i load up IWAR all seems to run fine, however when i actually try to enter the cockpit of the dreadnaught, things start freezing up and really slowing down. I've tried to decrease the size of my virtual memory swap file, no luck whatsoever.

If anyone has any suggestions how i could get this working i would appreciate it. Also some of you have had luck running this on windows xp hooooooow have you managed this? I'm trying to get it to work on my win98 machine.

Using a win98, radeon 9600, 2.6ghz system to run it.]

Thanks in advance.

J.

[Ranger]

How much RAM? You generally need to reduce the swap file to about 512mb.

Also, try disabling your hardware acceleration. I think to do this you need to go to display properties (in Windows) then in the advanced video settings there's an option to reduce hardware acceleration. Bring it all the way left.

Also, you can go to dxdiag (Start>Run>Dxdiag), go to display, and disable direct3d acceleration for an easier route.

Just make sure you re-enable the acceleration before trying to play any modern games.

[Jadman]

Thanks for the reply, unfortunatly i didn't have any luck with turning off video acceleration. I have no problems running it in software mode, but things just ain't happening in Voodoo 1 / Voodoo 2 mode

I have 512mb of ram.

[Ranger]

If it runs in Software, then just run it in software mode. It's way easier and you aren't missing a whole lot with the Voodoo modes other than a few fancy effects here and there.

[sauron1]

Yeah he is, the hi-res version of the V2 graphics setting completely kicks ass.

Did you make sure to run the wrapper at least once before trying to start the game? Keep us posted!

Oh, and I think the key to running in WinXP is to use Compatibility Mode, but I'm forgetting the details - maybe someone else can help here?

[huffduff]

I was wondering if someone could help me with this, i can't seem to get the glidewrapper working. When i load up IWAR all seems to run fine, however when i actually try to enter the cockpit of the dreadnaught, things start freezing up and really slowing down. I've tried to decrease the size of my virtual memory swap file, no luck whatsoever.

I had this exact problem with both I-War and Defiance using version 0.80e of the glide wrapper. The solution that I found was to go the I-War / Defiance options screen and turn off "Starfield Blur".

With blur on I get rougly 0.5 fps. Turning blur off fixes the problem completely, and I think the starfield still does the bluring effect.

[Jadman]

Yep i turned off the starfield blur, it worked. Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it :].

Now if i can just get it working in Windows XP, soon as i load up the game (with windows Compatibility Mode win 98) the screen goes blue with an error msg. Not a major prob i can still play it on the 98 machine, just be nice if i could get it on the Win XP machine :P. (I have set the virtual mem to 512mb).

[huffduff]

Yep i turned off the starfield blur, it worked. Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it :]

Good to know.

[RaCail]

Okay, so after I get a hand-me-down graphics card (a Rage 128), a new stick of ram (for a total for 160mb), and Windows 98SE, I decide to give I-War I a spin again with the glide wrapper.

Of course, with my luck, when I launch IWar in either mode, "A problem has been detected during Brender initialisation." Is the glide wrapper not compatible with the Rage 128 or what?

[hoom]

I'm pretty sure its not.
I think it requires a Directx7 graphics card minimum.
Check the readme to be sure.

[Shadowcat SFC]

Originally posted by RaCail
"A problem has been detected during Brender initialisation." Is the glide wrapper not compatible with the Rage 128 or what?

That's a pretty good bet. Remember that you need a good fast native OpenGL implementation for your video card in order for the Glide wrapper to function (as well as some excess CPU power over and above the game's own requirements in order to handle the translation from Glide to OpenGL -- there won't be a direct mapping from Glide to OpenGL in many cases, so there's undoubtedly a significant amount of work to be done by the wrapper to make the OpenGL card mimic a Voodoo card, and one Glide call may end up being represented by many OpenGL calls if no equivalent exists).

If you're going to set up a legacy machine, you're best to slap an actual Voodoo video card in there (preferably a Voodoo2 or later (unless the game fails with later Voodoo cards??))

[Shadowcat SFC]

I was just reading through this thread, and noted that Zeckensack's wrapper is the only one suggested for use. You might like to know that dgVoodoo also works a treat, and for those who have crash issues with the game (such as the SHIFT+Q audio glitch) it has the decided advantage over Zeck's wrapper of allowing you to run Glide games in a window. This means the game doesn't mess with your desktop resolution at all, and if it crashes you are not stuck in a different resolution and colour depth than you are expecting. The obvious downside is that you are not running full-screen, and will see part of your desktop when you play. Personally, I'm just thankful for the upside!

I'm using the most recent v1.40 beta release of dgVoodoo, and the configuration options I have changed from the defaults are:

Global:
* Windowed mode
(for the above-mentioned reason)

Glide - LFB Access:
* Closer to real hardware
(without this the full-screen mode (i.e. TAB in-game) can get seriously funky, with some confusing 'ghosting' of the reference grid, contacts, and the like when adjusting attitude)

I did initially think the problem was also related to this setting:
Glide - Refresh rate:
* Always wait for at least one vertical sync
but having done some addition testing prior to posting this, I no longer find that this is the case, so it seems that this one can remain unselected as per the defaults. However, should you come across the 'ghosting' problem even with the "Closer to real hardware" setting enabled, I suggest setting the "wait for vertical sync" option, as I had both enabled and was certainly not seeing the problem.

Do NOT force triple buffering (under Glide - Miscellaneous) or whenever a pre-rendered movie is activated, you'll have the most recent full-screen display visible and flashing (very distractingly) in the background!! If Zeck's wrapper still has those 'smudging' issues with the movie playback, this may be as good a reason as any to try dgVoodoo -- the movies are perfect :)

The only problem I've noted with this set-up is a rare glitch with the display of nebula at the edge of the screen (and this might be in the original game; I can't recall). In any case, I noticed it exactly once over the course of completing about a dozen missions, so it barely qualifies for a mention :)

Oh, I should also state that I have tested this exclusively with "Defiance", and not the original game.


Do also note that dgVoodoo configuration works by updating the DLL files themselves. It is therefore best to place the files into the I-War directory itself, so that when you change the configuration you are not affecting any global settings. If you have Zeck's wrapper installed to your Windows directory (which is the default location), and you install the dgVooodoo files to the I-War directory, then the two wrappers will not interfere with one another, and nothing needs to be uninstalled -- the game will automatically use the (dgVoodoo) files in the local game directory as its first choice, and if you remove them again it will revert back to using Zeckensack's wrapper.

Because I-War is a Windows app, you do not need to run the dgVoodoo.exe program (this is for use with DOS programs such as "Redguard", which also works beautifully!). The only files you need to copy to your I-War directory are:

glide2x.dll
glide2x.ovl
dgVoodoo.vxd
dgVoodooSetup.exe

Then run dgVoodooSetup.exe (the new copy in the I-War directory!!) and make at least the LFB change detailed above, if not the 'windowed mode' change as well, and you're good to go!

[Stephen Robertson]

Thanks for that! I'll give it a go.